Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a conveyer system with dispatching and receiver stations exhibiting station-individual control sets which are coupled to the actuation and signal devices of the system, said control sets being connected in parallel to a multiwire address line connecting to a central program control device, whereby the dispatching stations respectively each exhibit a destination selection device, and dispatching stations ready for dispatching operation are marked by cyclically applying station-individual address information to the address line by means of the program control device, and giving-off an acknowledgement signal for the program control device to an acknowledgement line jointly assigned to all stations by means of an address decoder responding to the applied address information when coincidence is present.
The address of the marked dispatching station remains on the address line in this conveyer system after the acknowledgement signal is output to the program control device, whereby the dispatching station is activated to additional control processes which are initiated and carried out by the control set of this station. The extent of the logic linkage of the control components of the control sets can be relatively extensive depending upon the type of stations utilized and the size of the system.
The destination information is transmitted to the intended receiver station by the dispatching station occupied on the multiwire address line by means of maintaining the address information. The dispatching information is produced by a destination selection device which is generally realized in the form of keys wired in an arbitrary code. The output of the destination information predetermined by the keying system proceeds via a multiwire destination transmission line to which all stations are connected in parallel. The receiver station responding via this line, transmits a reply via an additional acknowledgement line to which all control sets of the stations are also connected in parallel; said reply can only be received by that station which is activated by the maintenance of the address information on the address line. Subsequently, that station introduces the dispatching of the conveyer receptacle to the selected receiver station.
Such a control can only be employed in such conveyer systems in which a single transport path extends past all stations as in a series system. Examples for such conveyer systems are smaller pneumatic conveyer systems and belt conveyer systems. If a conveyer system exhibits branchings, i.e. shunt systems, permitting several transport directions at particular locations, the known control can no longer be employed as all control processes are carried out by the dispatching station and the receiver station alone. Taking such different transport possibilities for conveyer receptacles into account would only be possible with a considerable expansion of the control-technical logic within the control sets of the individual stations, whereby respectively different control concepts within the control sets; and different electrical conductor line paths for connecting return, storage and holding devices for different systems would have to be provided. However, the electrical conductor line expense for employing the known control in a continuous series system must be considered very high.